NASA launched its space game to promote Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. The game is titled The Roman Space Observer Game, a retro arcade game that the space agency intends to use to spark interest in the Roman Space Telescope. After Space Invaders made a generation love gaming and computers decades ago, NASA introduced this “8-bit” game to give some retro fun.
What the retro arcade game is
This game is a browser-based one, and it’s free. It may not be able to provide the feel of using actual scientific equipment of NASA. The retro 8-bit games have offered much fun to the older generations and still doing so. Now it is back in a new form, which is quite attractive for the new generation.
The retro arcade game console will allow the gamer to observe the Roman Telescope for one minute. The opening screen instructs the gamers to catch astrophysical objects in one minute, as many as possible. Before that, the player has to choose the language, and there are two options, Spanish and English.
What will be the gamer’s experience
The gamer will get points for capturing objects. The screen will show celestial objects flying at different speeds. The gamer has to chase those objects down using the arrow key. At some point, the detectors of the observer will be seen above an object. The player has to press the spacebar then quickly. Thus the gamer can capture the object and get points.
The objects
There will be various objects like pink and orange spirals, green and blue exoplanets, white supernovae Etc. All of them have ten to fifty points. The Webb Telescope of yellow color and hexagonal shape is also there, with seventy-five points, and the spiral objects have seven points each.
The best thing is that the gamer can also learn about the things they have caught. They may get attracted to the vast universe comprising tons of cosmic objects.
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope mission
The telescope has been named after Nancy Roman, the pioneer executive of NASA and famous as the “Mother of Hubble.” This telescope will provide more detailed images and study space. Plenty of questions about the space are still unanswered. There are questions like why the universe is expanding and which planets are behind the solar planet. The Nancy Grace Roman observatory will investigate these mysteries. This space observatory will cover the sky 100 times more than the 1990 Hubble Telescope. That one was an instrument 300-megapixel and massive in size. The mission aims to try solving the dark matter and dark energy puzzles, the most significant two of all the cosmic puzzles.
The Roman Space Telescope will have a measurement of the universe and provide a map. It will also capture wide-field pictures, and the telescope uses various modern techniques.
NASA is planning to launch the telescope within a few years. The size of the primary mirror is the same as Hubble Space Telescope. But the new observatory gives a hundred times larger field view. The view will create huge and clear infrared images. With this Roman Telescope, NASA is expecting to get space data they’ve never had.
Purpose of launching the game
The Roman Space Observer Game is quite simple, compared to the space observatory doing much work. But the game is undoubtedly fun through space science, and NASA wants people to gain more interest in space and a piece of basic knowledge on their upcoming mission.
Conclusion
The retro arcade game is better and more enjoyable than other video games aimed at promotions. The old 8-bit games have poor graphics resolutions, and the new game is better than the genuinely retro ones. So the younger generation will likely love it.
